WASHINGTON — A House committee on Wednesday approved a proposed compromise that would remove the Cross-Florida Barge Canal from the list of navigable water projects that receive federal funds.

The bill containing the compromise could come to the House floor for a vote next month.

Meanwhile, the staffs of Florida's U.S. senators, Lawton Chiles and Paula Hawkins, were seeking to develop a joint position on the compromise that would ease its passage through the Senate.

If a joint position came to pass, it would mark the first time that Chiles, a Democrat, and Hawkins, a Republican, have been able to agree on the barge canal.

Under the proposal approved by the House Public Works Committee, the federal government would buy 28,400 acres between Inglis and Palatka where the canal had not been dug when President Nixon stopped construction in January 1971.

The land includes 20 miles of the Oklawaha River and a 50-mile strip that cuts across Marion County to Lake Rousseau, west of Dunnellon.

The federal government would pay up to $32 million for the land. The state would give the money to six counties that have invested in the canal project, primarily by buying land.

The land would be designated as a wilderness area, and Congress would later have to approve a management plan for the area.

The full impact of the compromise, which was offered Tuesday by Rep. Robert Roe, D-N.J., has not yet been determined.

An advocate of ending federal funding for the canal, Rep. Buddy MacKay, D-Ocala, said of the proposed compromise, ''I feel like it's a straight deal, but we're still trying to look behind every bush.''

Despite initial optimism, the bushes may be hiding several obstacles.

Not only are there unresolved questions about cost and ownership, but the compromise is part of a controversial omnibus water projects bill. Congress has not passed such a bill since 1976.

Many congressional participants in the canal debate are withholding final judgment on the compromise until state officials finish reviewing its provisions.

The federal government now pays $1.5 million each year to maintain the canal in its half-completed state.

The compromise would not change that, a Hawkins aide said, and designating canal lands as a wilderness area could increase maintenance costs.

Chiles, who has consistently supported striking the canal from the federal list of water projects, would prefer that the ownership of the middle segment be retained by the state, an aide said.

But the canal's champion, Rep. Bill Chappell Jr., D-Daytona Beach Shores, said that he would not support any compromise that does not include federal ownership.

Because Congress traditionally stays out of parochial feuds, an agreement would probably need the unanimous support of the state's delegation before Congress would approve the barge-canal compromise.

Under that compromise, the entire length of the canal would remain under the jurisdiction of the Army Corps of Engineers, an element that receives only reluctant support from MacKay.

In previous years Hawkins has opposed efforts to rescind federal funding for the canal partially on the grounds that it would be too costly, and she may find the compromise's $32 million price tag to be too high, an aide said.